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The Canon · No. 029

Shinto

Kami no Michi; the way of the kami

c.500 BCE (prehistoric roots) – present · East Asian · Living · Japan

III. THE AXIAL AGE — c.900 – 200 BCE

How many

Around 100 million Japanese participate in Shinto rites; only a few million self-identify as Shinto believers. The gap is the point — Shinto is done, not believed in.

Who began it

No founder, no scripture in the revelatory sense, no creed. The name Shinto was coined only in the 6th century CE, to distinguish native practice from the newly arrived Buddhism.

What it is for

To maintain purity and right relationship with the kami, so that life, community and the land flourish.

What it worships

Kami — usually translated gods, better understood as anything that inspires awe: deities, ancestors, emperors, mountains, waterfalls, ancient trees, unusual rocks, and outstanding people. Tradition speaks of yaoyorozu no kami, eight million kami, meaning an uncountable number. Chief among them Amaterasu, the sun goddess, from whom the imperial line claims descent; Susanoo, her storm-god brother; Inari, rice and business, with over 30,000 shrines and fox messengers; Hachiman, war.

What it holds

Purity and pollution are the central axis, not good and evil. Kegare, defilement from death, blood, illness and disorder, is not sin and carries no guilt; it is a condition to be washed off. There is no doctrine of original sin, no commandments, no salvation, and no requirement to believe anything. Musubi, the generative force of creation. Harmony with nature and community is the working ethic.

What it does

Torii gates marking the boundary of sacred space. Harae — purification with water and salt; temizu, rinsing hands and mouth at the shrine basin; misogi, standing under a cold waterfall. Offerings of rice, sake and evergreen branches. Ema wooden prayer plaques and omikuji paper fortunes. Matsuri festivals with portable shrines carried through the streets. Life events divide by religion in modern Japan: births and weddings are typically Shinto, funerals almost always Buddhist. The Ise Grand Shrine is rebuilt from scratch every twenty years, most recently in 2013 — the building is not the point, the continuity of the act is.

After death

Minimal and deliberately so. Early Shinto has Yomi, a dark, polluting land of the dead described in the Kojiki, from which Izanagi flees and must purify himself. It is not a judgment realm. Because death is the strongest source of kegare, Shinto largely hands the afterlife over to Buddhism, which is why almost every Japanese funeral is Buddhist even for people who visit shrines all year. Some dead become kami — ancestors, and controversially the war dead enshrined at Yasukuni.

Its texts

Kojiki (712 CE) and Nihon Shoki (720 CE), imperial chronicles rather than scriptures. Engishiki, a 10th-century book of ritual procedure. Norito, liturgical prayers.

Its branches

Shrine Shinto (mainstream, around 80,000 shrines), Imperial Household Shinto, Sect Shinto (thirteen recognised groups including Tenrikyo), Folk Shinto.

Of note

State Shinto (1868–1945) is the case study for how an ancient, decentralised, doctrine-light tradition can be reassembled by a modern state into an instrument of nationalism in a single generation.

Its timeline

  1. c.300 BCE–300 CE Yayoi period; rice agriculture and the ritual complex that becomes Shinto.
  2. c.538–552 CE Buddhism arrives from Korea; the court is split over adopting it.
  3. 712, 720 CE Kojiki and Nihon Shoki written, fixing the imperial descent from Amaterasu.
  4. c.9th–19th c. Shinbutsu-shugo — Shinto and Buddhism fuse almost completely, with kami understood as manifestations of buddhas. For a thousand years they are effectively one religion.
  5. 1868 CE Shinbutsu bunri. The Meiji government forcibly separates them, destroying Buddhist statuary in shrines, and constructs State Shinto around emperor worship.
  6. 1869 Yasukuni Shrine founded for the war dead.
  7. 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education binds loyalty, filial piety and the emperor's divinity into the school system.
  8. 1945 Occupation authorities abolish State Shinto; on 1 January 1946 Emperor Hirohito issues the Ningen-sengen, renouncing the claim to divinity.
  9. 1978–present Yasukuni enshrines convicted Class-A war criminals; official visits become a standing diplomatic dispute with China and Korea.

Sources

Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.

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